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Address: Gallowstree Rd, Rotherfield Peppard (Sonning Common) RG9 5HT
Telephone number: 0118 972 2227
Website: http://www.awtrestaurants.com/
Date of visit:
Approximate cost per head: Set lunch £8 for one course, £10 for 2 and £14 for 3 courses (only available Tue –Thur lunch to 8pm and lunch only on Friday). Main courses from specials of the day or the a la carte around £15
Comments on wine list/beer: Pretty good list. Decent beers (Rebellion, Brakspear) on tap. Good wine list with bottles from under £20 to well over £100.
Summary:
AWT has recently been awarded a low grade for hygiene (http://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=113099).
We also have had good and bad reviews about the place. so, I thought that another visit to assess the place is needed.
I will say one thing in his favour. He is seen regularly cooking at the Greyhound. In fact, you are invited to meet him in the kitchen if he is in. On this occasion, AWT was there again.
Re the hygiene bit, I have to say that on the day we went for lunch, There were bits of crisp on the floor in the bar – from the night before? – and, the table tops had “wipe marks” on it.
We decided to dine in the restaurant which was in a “better” state.
On the specials menu, they had steak diane and grouse. We would have gone for the steak diane as it is a rare thing to appear on the menu in the 21st century. However, we were told that it is thin slices of steak so cannot be done “rare”. We settled for the grouse (£18.95).
When it came, it was a whole grouse on a large square plate – completely covered with food. There were red cabbage, game chips, crisp thyme stuffing.
The grouse was a bit under cooked for our liking. It was red with blood when you cut into it. However, it was cooked as the meat was solid rather than spongy. The bird was also not as gamey as we would have liked. I judge this to be the result of a lack of hanging. Everything else was perfect. The cabbage was just crisp and not too sugary or vinegary. The game chips were out of this world and the stuffing like Fine crispy saw dust.
We washed everything down with a bottle 2006 Ch Lagrange Les Tours (£23.50). I was going to order a bottle of 2007 Cahors but that turned out to be 2008 – far too young.
In my view too many restaurants no longer keep a cellar and so they are all selling red wines 2-3 years old. The ones that do have aged wines normally put in a mark up of ridiculous proportion. Surely, someone – the French do – can put together a cellar of 5000 bottles in order to allow the wines to age and still charge a reasonable mark up? I personally think that a mark up of 400% plus service on a 5 year old red is a rip off.
Back to AWT. I like AWT’s food and the service at The Greyhound is friendly and good. The place is not pristine like a 4* hotel but, why should we be too worried about the floor and the state of a table – we eat our food off plates!
E
Address: Gallowstree Road, Rotherfield Peppard, Oxfordshire , RG9 5HT . Follow signs to Gallowtree Common from B481
Telephone number: 0118 9722227
Website: http://www.awtrestaurants.com/
Date of visit: 27 August 2010
Approximate cost per head: Around £20 for 2 courses
Comments on wine list/beer: Very extensive and reasonably priced list. From £14.50 for a basic red or white to £175 for a bottle of 82 Ch. Beychevelle. Good range of beer on tap including Rebellion IPA.
Summary:
I was taken there by my good friends D and C.
As we pulled into the car park, we noticed that the great man – AWT himself was in his chef gear coming out of the back of the pub. He greeted us with a smile and informed us that he works there quite regularly. By the way, we noticed that he has slimmed down a lot from his former self since he declared that he is a diabetic. Glad to see that he is taking good care of himself.
The pub is well know for its 8 for eight policy – £8 for a main course (special menu) before 8pm (Tue – Fri lunch time). No restaurant service on a Monday.
I have eaten here before and had the tartare steak which was very good.
Bottles and Cooks received a complaint about this place from a reader as well as a supportive comment. See comments linked to article on 5th Feb 2010. http://www.bottlesandcooks.com/?s=greyhound
This time we were house in the main restaurant which is quite cluttered on the wall and around the ceiling with interesting bits and prints. Two chandeliers lit the place with funny white and purple light shades.
For starters my friends has the pang pang chicken and the field mushroom on toasts (starters are around £7). I was offered a bit of the pang pang chicken to taste and it was good but I am used to a more spicy and nutty (tahina paste is better) version served in Chinese restaurants.
For main courses, I had the Southern Fried chicken (£13.95) whilst my friends had the lamb and duck (both at £14.95) – all dishes were from the a la carte menu. I also asked for some bacon greens (£3) on the side.
The Southern fried chickens turned out to be goujons of filleted chicken coated in Cajun spice and it came with corn fritters, chips and chicken chips. The chicken chips were deep fried skins (I think!). There were two line of tomato ketchup and mayonnaise to make the plate look pretty. My friends told me that their dishes were excellent. Beware! They are not big on veg here so you may need to order sides. The lamb did came with a few courgette fritters and potatoes, the duck came with a spinach pancake and potatoes.
We washed down the meal with a bottle of 2008 Argentinean Malbec – it was a little bit light but at under £16 is very good value.
All in all it was a very nice meal, I would certainly become a regular. AWT’s style of cooking is basically upmarket meat and potato, low on plate decorations but nicely cooked with good meat.
The down side of the evening was that a child pulled down a giant teddy bear (called Anthony) which landed near (on?) my friend C. Luckily by then, she had finished her meal. The father of the child did apologise.
As we left, we noticed that the place was nearly full.
E
PS Service was also good!
Address: Galllowstree Road, Sonning Common, RG9 5HT. Note: some pub guide puts the pub in Rotherfield Peppard rather than Sonning Common.
Telephone number: 01189722227
Website: N/A
Date of visit: 29 February 2010
Approximate cost per head: From £10
Comments on wine list/beer: Bombadier or Black Sheep, extensive wine list at usual mark up.
Summary:
This is celebrity chef AWT’s pub.
The view from the outside suggests that it an old, slightly run down building – huge puddles in the car park.
On the inside, the pub is divided into two areas, a bar side and a large restaurant in a converted barn with high ceiling. It’s obvious that people come here to eat as the beer is not the attraction.
I sat in the bar side and noticed that there were crumbs on the table – not a good sign as I was first one in through the door at noon.
They operate a set meal and an a la carte. The black boards just tell you that the set meal is different every day but set formula e.g. roast on a Sunday ….They have a 8 for 8 policy which mean that you can have one course from the set menu at £8 (lunch till 8pm), £10 for 2 courses and £12 for 3 courses.
I opted for the steak tartar on the a la carte menu. You can have this as a starter with melba toast or as a main course with chips (£12.95). I had a pint of black sheep (£3) with it.
The steak came on a plate with a smallish side salad and a bowl of frites cut into aluminates sprinkled with coarse salt. Luckily it was not too salty.
Now, the steak tartar is probably the best I have eaten for a very long time. It was coarsely chopped up instead of minced. They used green peppercorns instead of capers and it was seasoned right. I did not have “food” poisoning the next day which is also good as steak tartar can be very dodgy as it is based on raw meat with raw egg.
I will have to go back and test out the other dishes as he is famous for his “grilled meat” dishes.
Eddie
PS (14 July 2010)